The Loss Queen (Approaching Infinity Book 5) Read online

  10,922.055

  Root Palace (Transit)

  “I called you both here to honor your request,” Vays said.

  Kapler and Waice shared a look, then regarded their chief once again.

  They were in Vays’s training facility, which was sparsely outfitted when compared to Jav’s, housing only a standard gravity block and a rack of swords of various sizes, lengths, and styles.

  “Your request was valid,” Vays said. “But so was General Holson’s concern. Today we’ll find out which was the better course: confidence or prudence.”

  “Yes, sir,” they responded together.

  Vays stepped up to the block which was already set to the maximum of twenty-five standard gravities. “Waice, you were first to speak up. You can be first to go.”

  Waice nodded enthusiastically and scrambled up onto the block.

  “Watch carefully now, Ban.” Vays turned to face Waice on the block.

  Waice put his hands together in salute, but got nothing in return. He altered his stance, drew his phoenix-eye fists before him, stepped to launch himself forward and found his momentum checked and overwhelmed. His whole front erupted with pain as he was driven back. Awareness of what had happened snapped to the forefront of his mind as he slid down the length and off the end of Vays’s outstretched sword, arcing to the floor beyond the gravity block.

  Vays had stopped himself and allowed Waice to continue to where he now lay. He regraded his junior from the block, the vents of the Titan Star armor closing, the usually-hidden green and red pinpoint lights winking out as the plates slid back into place.

  Waice struggled to sit up, clutching at his left side, which was dark and wet with blood. A widening pool was gathering on the floor. He fought dizziness, steadied himself with his other hand on the floor, but his arm clearly shook. He stared with fiery eyes at Vays, who yet stood Dark in the gleaming armor of the Titan Star, the Titan Saber held loosely in his right hand, which twitched periodically as if in anticipation of Waice making a sudden return to the block.

  “Did you think I’d start slow, Waice? Take it easy on you?”

  Waice coughed, turned and spat blood, resumed his fiery stare. He was panting now. “I thought we would spar, sir. Engage in a training exercise that might benefit one or both of us.” He coughed again, wiped his bloody lips with his shaky right hand. “As a member of your Squad, I thought this desirable.”

  Vays cocked his head and sighed dramatically, his patience gone. “What did yo learn, Waice?”

  “You mean besides what it feels like—” he was interrupted by a cough, “to be hit raw with a rank twenty-five Artifact operating at a hundred and thirty percent?”

  Vays shook his head. “I’m going to ignore that because you’re bleeding.” He regarded the dark red spreading, spreading. “Quite a lot.”

  Waice started to blink erratically and sway.

  “Sir?” Kapler said. He’d been watching with a dropped jaw, speechless until now. “I think we need to get him to the hospital.”

  Vays threw up a dismissive hand. “Fine, fine. Take him. You can have your shot, too, Ban. Just be sure to start at full and proceed at full. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kapler said, collecting Waice, now half-unconscious, from the floor.

  “Make sure he understands that, too!” Vays shouted after Kapler as he exited with Waice.

  Vays stared at the closed door for a few moments before returning to normal. He dropped down from the block and went to the communications box on the wall. He punched a sequence of buttons and spoke into the box. “This is Vays. I need a clean-up crew in my training room. And hurry, I’m getting tired of looking at the mess.”

  10,922.056

  Root Palace (Transit)

  All the Shades were gathered in the war room—all, except Spaier Waice, who was still in the hospital. Though his wounds weren’t fatal, in addition to being run through, he’d suffered seven broken ribs and severe bruising to all his internal organs. His torso was a livid purple.

  Brin Karvasti sat at the glass-topped table, pouting. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest. “What you were thinking?” she said to Vays without looking at him.

  Vays swallowed back a reply and dropped his hands heavily onto the tabletop.

  “Yes, Mr. Vays,” Witchlan said. “It was a rather interesting choice you made.”

  Ban Kapler looked down at the table, using the video screens below the glass surface—and just about anything else he could find—as a distraction and a way to avoid making eye contact with Vays.

  “Help me out here, Holson,” Vays said.

  Jav stared at Vays, affectless and eyes vacant.

  “Tch,” Vays said. “We both warned him—and Ban—that training with their seniors could be a dangerous prospect.”

  “Well, yes, you’ve proven that,” Witchlan said. “Indeed, why wait for planetfall and actual opposition. We must say, Mr. Vays, in all our many, many years, we’ve never seen anything quite like this. Is there something going on, something you’d like to share with us?”

  Vays glanced fleetingly at Brin, returned his attention to Witchlan. “No, sir.” After a pause, he continued, “I was trying to teach him something.”

  “You’ve certainly succeeded in teaching him something if not many things,” Witchlan said, “but whether it was what you intended remains as unclear as your reasoning in this case.

  “Be more careful with your charges, Mr. Vays, or there will be consequences for you next time. The Place with Many Doors awaits us and we will not have our chances at success undermined by whatever it is that brought on your display of bad judgment. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Minister.”

  “Good.”

  10,922.090

  Root Palace (Transit)

  Waice was released from the hospital and fully recovered in sixteen days, but only because he was able to apply his knowledge of Divine Pattern to his wounds. The hole Vays had left with the Titan Saber was easy, conditioning his organs required a bit more finesse.He immediately began sparring with Ban Kapler on a standard gravity block. Both had learned the lesson Vays had tried to impart, but neither was trying to kill the other, so they agreed to a schedule of both raw and Dark matches. While recovering and stuck in his hospital bed, Waice had been busy doing research on how to jury-rig a standard gravity block, to increase its output by one additional gravity. It burned out the mechanism after a total of thirty to forty hours of use, but they’d been informed by Witchlan that custom block production wasn’t possible during transit, that resources were already thin due to a certain general’s training habits. There was an abundance of standard blocks available, throughout the Palace and transit was not indefinite, so their creative use of the equipment was overlooked for the time being.

  Waice was no longer interested in sparring with Vays, at least not right away. He was sure that this would be viewed by some as cowardice, but he didn’t care. Eventually, he would revisit the idea of sparring with Vays—he would have to, if only for the sake of research—but not yet. He would continue to work with Kapler. Both Kaplers, in fact.

  Raus had proven to be a unique opponent. Waice could hit him as hard as possible and still not permanently injure him. This was great training for Waice’s Drill Knuckle, and its Dark counterpart, the Phantasma Screw. It got a little iffy when he got caught in one of Raus’s Sarsan wrestling holds, but this only helped Waice further explore the possibilities open to him through his mastery of Divine Pattern: to withstand the superior force Raus could bring to bear, or slip away like a gossamer wisp. Training Dark enabled him to use some of the additional, more subtle powers provided by the Whirl Plate.

  Waice encouraged Ban to practice similarly with Raus, but Ban had declined, saying he couldn’t possibly fight his big brother, citing a psychological loss from the beginning of any proposed contest with him.

  Waice practiced with Ban on the jury-rigged gravity blocks and both had favorable results. But e
ven though he was fresh from the hospital, Waice wanted more. All the while they practiced, he was patiently waiting to ensure that he wouldn’t break before secretly returning to Jav Holson’s training facility. He had planned to do so even as he sat drifting into senselessness in a pool of his own blood after learning his lesson from Vays. He had every intention of continuing to use the custom gravity block and use it the way Holson did, alone. He’d given himself a ready date, and when it arrived, it challenged his self-discipline. He spent the day anxious, unable to keep still. He went through all the motions, attended the war room briefing, trained through the active shift mostly with Ban and a little with Raus. Waiting until after hours with nothing of substance to occupy his time proved to be almost impossible, but finally, he was satisfied with the late hour and made his way to Jav’s facility.

  He punched the code and entered the dark chamber. The block was silent but the pillars glittered strangely, almost hypnotically. He wondered a little bit about the process that made them that way and how they didn’t eventually shake themselves apart since he knew the effect wasn’t entirely optical, but ultimately it didn’t matter. He only knew that, once set in motion, they would help him improve.

  As the door closed behind him he half-considered leaving the lights off, but thought that Holson would find him pasted across several of the pillars in the morning. He compromised by only using half the bank of bulbs and convinced himself that the semi-dark would effectively mask the sound of the deck in operation. Of course it would.

  He approached the control set for the block, made some adjustments—it was a remarkably simple system—and was seized by sudden, irrational apprehension. Spaier Waice was no coward, but his mind, like anyone else’s, could play tricks on him in the wee hours. When his eyes fixed on a strange shape in the gloom of the far corner of the room, he couldn’t help but think that it was someone sitting there watching him. The more he stared, the more his mind raced and insisted that some abomination had taken up residence in the corner and was now regarding him, like a predator its prey.

  When the voice came, Waice nearly jumped.

  “You memorized the code that day with Vays.”

  The shape rose, moved forward.

  “General Holson. I didn’t think anyone—you, I didn’t think you—would be here at this hour.”

  “I don’t spend much time in my quarters,” Jav said flatly. “Don’t sleep much. I’d train more, if not for the limited repair allowance on my block. Scarce resources during transit.”

  “You stay here, then?”

  There was no reply.

  “Why did you you let us use your block that day?”

  “Because it got too crowded in here. Like it is now.” Jav came forward, making for the exit, and the two made eye contact.

  Waice had gotten used to Jav’s dull, expressionless eyes—which still managed to somehow catch everything—but in that instant, he thought he saw something there, some recognition, but of what Waice had no idea.

  Jav paused almost imperceptibly and then continued through the door. “If you’re on the block when I get back, you’ll just be another obstacle,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Yes, General Holson.”

  Waice thought he understood Jav’s meaning. He hoped he did. He set the block to twenty-seven gravities, the columns to “Active/Active Response” with an initial twenty-second delay and a duration of twenty minutes. This was only his second time on the block, but since he was alone, he could focus exclusively on the columns. Keeping out of the way of where they actually were was an excellent exercise, both mental and physical, since he realized he could track them better by seeing their Pattern. Drawing a solid bead on them and using them for striking practice created an interesting dynamic, which he was sure was by design. Really tuning in to see the material’s Pattern, he understood that though super dense, they were vibrating at high and variable frequencies. This had the effect of making them slippery—as he had already discovered—but yielding at the same time because of the mass dispersion, so he could get in a satisfying punch. However, for every successful strike, somehow the kinetic energy was transferred to another, random column that struck him from behind, from the side, or from above. The first time, while he was picking himself up off the block, he thought it a coincidence, and not a reaction at all. The second time, he grew suspicious. The third time, he was convinced of the connection. Mastering this block, or even growing accustomed to it, would require a spatial awareness that bordered on divine—or honing his sense to see Patterns to reflex. This thought made him smile.

  He reset the block countless times and practiced almost until it was time for the next day’s briefing, carving out only enough time to get an hour’s sleep and take a much needed shower.

  At the briefing he did his best to stifle a number of yawns. Besides being unable to concentrate due to exhaustion, he was a little disturbed by Jav Holson. Jav’s eyes were as dull as ever, but Waice couldn’t help noticing that they were trained upon him for the duration of the meeting. It was unnerving and Waice likened it to the feeling he got the night before when his mind raced, trying to define something out of the darkness. He shook his head clear of the childish thinking and tried to ignore the First General.

  10,922.347

  Root Palace (Transit)

  Spaier Waice had been able to secure one day in five of Raus Kapler’s time for sparring for the remainder of transit. Though Ban had been practicing for months now with Vays, Waice had yet to step onto the block with their captain, but he wasn’t suffering for it. Mostly by using Holson’s block, he’d managed to increase his gravity rating by three full ranks. He hadn’t reported the change and wasn’t planning to, at least not in the foreseeable future. It didn’t bother him that Raus might know of the increase. He’d grown increasingly fond of Ban’s older brother over the course of their practice sessions. Nervous about his own knowledge of what the Empire had in mind for Jav Holson, Waice was careful not to raise the topic of the First General too often as it might prove suspicious, but never speaking of him might do the same. He knew that Raus and Jav had been friends in the past and pure curiosity won out over caution which was perhaps unnecessary in any case.

  “You used to spar with General Holson, didn’t you?” Waice said. He and Raus were sitting on the gravity block, taking a break from practice.

  Raus nodded. “He made it a point to spar with just about everyone. That changed after the last acquisition.”

  “What happened?”

  Raus shrugged and turned away. “Something terrible. We lost your predecessors in that encounter, you remember? Jav and Hilene Tanser had been close, but. . .”

  An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Finally Waice resumed. “I apologize. I suppose it’s none of my business.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just. . . I’ve known Jav a long time. There were. . . things that happened in the past, things that. . . Planet 1607 changed him. We were friends before. I’d like to think that we’re still friends, but he’s a shell now, in some ways more of a machine than Scanlan is.

  “Anyway, we’re wasting time. Let’s get back to work. I notice you’re quite a bit stronger now than when we started early on in transit.”

  “Me, sir? Well, I have been training very hard. You appear to be working at higher than recorded levels as well.”

  “I have to. We all do. We have to be ready, to stay ahead.”

  “Ready, sir? You make it sound like a race.”

  Raus’s gaze fell upon Waice like a weight. “It is a race, Waice. Never forget that. It may keep you alive.”

  Waice frowned, unconsciously matching Raus’s tone and intensity, “No, sir. I won’t, sir.”

  2

  FINAL PLANETFALL

  10,923.020.1000

  Root Palace (Transit)

  The war room, dark except for the light of the countless video screens lining the walls and shining up through the glass-topped oval table, was crowded with Shade
s. The four generals were seated on one side, with the Titan Squad members across from them. Witchlan stood just beyond the head of the table, gesturing to a holographic screen behind him. This was a scene that most of them had acted out hundreds of times before, but it was new for Spaier Waice and Ban Kapler. Both looked on, eyes electric and scanning for any stray detail.

  “Three hundred and thirty-five days of transit ends today,” Witchlan said. “In just six hours we make planetfall. The Place with Many Doors lies within our grasp, but there are forces at work that seek to deny us.” He pointed to a landmass and a pinpoint upon it. “This is where we want to go.” His finger trailed right, over a suite of craggy ranges, through a sweep of forest, over a river-shot plain to a city on what became the southern coast. “This is as close as we will be able to get on planetfall,” he said.

  Vays’s brow pinched together in a combination of confusion and annoyance. “Why?”

  “Because, Mr. Vays, there are forces at work that seek to deny us. You were listening, were you not?” There was a strange edge to Witchlan’s tone, one that was not at all lost on Vays or anyone else in the room.

  “Yes, Minister,” Vays said, demurring immediately.

  “Now, this is as close as we can get on planetfall. Our limitation in this regard is no secret and was, we have no doubt, orchestrated. They’ve anticipated our arrival for some time now. The city has long-since been evacuated, but we will still take a small amount of petty pleasure in ruining it when we touch down.

  “It should be noted that the radiation produced by this system’s sun is of a special variety. We have encountered similar suns in the past, most recently in the system which produced Icsain, but the sun here is not inimical to Viscain. Indeed, this exact profile has been encountered but once before, on Planet 1397.”

  Witchlan allowed his gaze to fall upon Jav for a moment before continuing. “It is pure speculation at this point, but we cannot rule out the possibility that this planet may host a being similar to Icsain and our Emperor. Planet 1397 did not, at least not that we know of, and its sun was harmlessly consumed long ago, but we will exercise caution.